Millions of people in Kolkata lit diyas responding to PM’s appeal

Kolkata,06 April(HS): In an unprecedented display of solidarity for the second time in about two weeks, millions of people in Kolkata and other parts of West Bengal joined about 1.2 billion Indians in other parts of the country last night to shut off lights in their homes and lit diyas and candles, responding to the appeal of Prime minister Narendra Modi to unitedly fight for the defeat of deadly Coronavirus.

At the stroke of 9 p.m. in their clock last night, or maybe a couple of minutes earlier in some places, millions the people in the city and elsewhere in the state shut off the lights in their homes, residences, flats and apartments in multi-storied buildings and lit diyas, candles and torches in their mobile phones among others to show that despite having innumerable difference on almost every issue we the Indians were now one in our gigantic fight against the killer KOVID -19 which has already claimed over 108 lives in the country besides affecting nearly 4,000 people from all walks of life.

Though some people in some areas in over excitement and probably in a bid to come out from their boredom because of the locked-down condition, burst crackers and ignited rockets and celebrated the occasion as somewhat Dewali night, the vast majority of others across Kolkata and elsewhere in the country observed the occasion with grace and in absolute silence providing a completely new dimension to the call of the Prime minister.

A section of critics who till last evening were ‘confident’ that there would be a major breakdown in the supply of electricity in the National grid because of the huge fluctuations in both demand and supply of power in the wake of the 9 minutes shut down, had to withdraw their comments later in the night because nothing as such had happened.

‘The Indian power sector is robust enough to prove them wrong’, said former General Manager of West Bengal State Electricity Board Sunirmal Chatterjee.

Though Governor Jagdeep Dhankar and his wife participated on the occasion and lit diyas at the entrance of Raj Bhavan last night, the Chief Minister and her ministerial colleagues were nowhere to be seen as any of the other opposition leaders of the Congress and the CPI(M).

However, all senior BJP leaders in the state including state BJP President Dilip Ghosh, MP, Rahul Sinha, Mukul Roy,  Pratap Banerjee, Sayantan Basu and Arjun Singh participated along with large numbers of party workers.